Agreed. I bought a D40X this past summer and it's completely exceeded my needs and expectations for everything I want to do. It's my second digital camera, much improved over the first one which was a 1 megapixel camera. As my best friend describes the Nikon, "it's a fun camera". In fact we're both so satisfied with what it can do that neither of us have yet to take it out of auto mode. Maybe I bought more camera than I really need, but if the time comes I'm pretty sure all the expanded capabilities I'll need will be there.
How did you arrive at the 25Mp figure? Not arguing, just wondering.
K64 was, without doubt, a marvelous (almost perfect) color film. But slides always had the problem that they had to be projected or printed to be seen by others. In either case, a *lot* got lost in the conversion. Yes, if you were a National Geo photographer, shooting K64 and bringing it home to a lab with almost no financial constraints was practical. For the rest of us it was not so easy. In effect, K64 was
*theoretically* the best color film, it just didn't lead to practical results ... unless you could afford to do/buy dye transfer prints, now long gone.
There's no question that film of a certain size blows away digital. And that's why digital cannot yet replace even a cheap old $100 Mamiya C-3 negative.
But, as I said, at least subjectively, at 10 Mp, I see no difference between 4x6 prints and those made from 35mm. If I "enlarge" the digital image on screen to size it to what would be 11x14", I see something very close to 35mm quality. I'd have to do a lot more rigorous testing (not that I intend to) to see how far apart they actually are.
You are alone in so defining it. Both Nikon and Canon's pro lines start well below $2000 (the new Nikon D300 body is about $1800). Nikon's top-of-the-line pro body, the D3, is a 12.1 Mp camera. Canon has analogous bodies in their pro line, though they do offer an EOS body now that has a 22 Mp sensor. By most definitions, these qualify as pro equipment.
I would suggest that slide film is a poor reference point. You don't actually ever look at slides - at least not critically. You have to magnify them or print them, and as I said, either way, a lot gets lost in the process. More typically, the comparison is between a traditional print and a digital image. These days, the output from the newer printers is pretty spectacular. However, I am old fashioned - I like the look of traditional silver-based prints, even for my snapshots (which is what I use the D80 for). I have my digital files printed on traditional color paper (Fuji) and *that* is what I'm comparing to older, 35mm negative-based prints. In that comparsion, the 10 Mp images from the D80 are easily the equal of 35mm.
All modern pro digital cameras (the D80 is the boundary between consumer and pro for Nikon, hence "prosumer") can save images in either camera "raw" format and/or Jpegs at various levels of resolution. For absolutely best results, one edits the raw file - with something like Photoshop or The Gimp. If I were serious about digital, this is what I'd be doing. But - since it cannot replace my medium- and large format film cameras - I use digital as my "tourist" camera for snapshots and fun and to record the day-to-day stuff I see. For that, raw is unnecessary.
If you live somewhere where this is practical, try the following:
1) Rent a prosumer/pro digital camera/body. Nikon D80/D300/D3 or an equivalent Canon EOS.
2) Save the images as raw files as you shoot.
3) Edit them with The Gimp - it's free and does most everything Photoshop does, or at least what you're likely to need anytime soon. You need to do a slight bit of editing on every image: clean up the levels/histograms for even distribution and do a small bit of unsharp masking on the image.
4) Have them printed by a good digital->chemical printing house. To my utter amazement (and delight), it turns out that my local Sam's Club does this as well as the pro lab I use. They have great quality control and the prints are very inexpensive. Best of all, I upload them over the internet and they're ready an hour later.
I think you may be shocked at how comparable digital is to 35mm. I say this having worked with digital cameras from 2Mp, then 3Mp, then 7Mp, and now 10Mp. At 7Mp it was hard to tell the 35mm from the digital image. At 10Mp, I think it is more-or-less impossible to tell the difference. And, BTW, over the years I shot a *lot* of 35mm with Nikon, Leica, Canon, Minolta, Pentax, etc. - If anyone wants to get rid of their old Leica, don't throw it away, throw it my way ;)
I dunno if the D40 has this feature, but the D80 has a really nifty option. You can set the camera in Program mode so that it makes most of the decisions for you. BUT, if you don't like the shutter speed/f-stop combo it selects, you can rotate a thumbwheel while still in P mode, and pick a different combo more to your choosing. This avoids having to go into Aperture- or Shutter- priority mode to get a particular setting where you like it.
I understand completely. I had a Nikon FE before the 1mp camera. This relatively new D40X gives me speed, the 4 gig SD card holds hundreds if not thousands of zero cost high resolution images and the autofocusing 70-200mm lens enables foolproof focusing. I'm almost ashamed to admit that low cost, ease and of use really decent imaging has eclipsed all other considerations.
A friend of mine is a professional photographer and he also has an enormous collection of documentary-type pictures he's shot over the years for his own pleasure. His formula was always the same Tr-X pushed to 600, from a bulk loader and a Leica and a Nikon always fully loaded, ready to go. He'd reach for one or the other, depending which one was handy, had whatever lens on it, etc. He has a pile of 8x10 , all the same paper, I'd hazard a guess, of about 200 pictures he favours.
One day, back in early 1980, another friend and I were visiting there, and somehow, we got talking about being able to tell the difference between the Leica and the Nikon images. My buddy has absolutely no experience in anything like photography, and yet, when he went through the pile, he was right, better than 75% of the time, which was a Leica shot, and which was a Nikon shot. Both my photographer friend and I were totally blown away by that. We think it was high-light detail, or something odd in the dynamic range in the high-lights...
Having said that, my little 885 Nikon ( 3MP) does better in some subject matter than my H2 Sony at 6 MP.
But nothing comes close the a 85mm f2.8 German made Zeiss I had on a Contax for insane dynamic range or sharpness... other than the same type on a 'Blad.... just an opinion. For a 50mm lens, the Leica was better, IMHO. especially at low light.
The D40X has that thumbwheel, can't speak for the D40, but it's supposed to be identical to the D40X aside from it being capable of a max 6mbit pixels. Also noticed in your last message that you used the D80 as the boundary for raw format images. The D40x which is one less on the scale also will save in raw format. I'm guessing the D40 will also do the same thing.
Bought the D40X last summer and it appears that it's being phased out already. The camera store I bought it from doesn't stock it anymore. Things sure change fast in the digital world.
Leica's have an especially beautiful out-of-focus look when you are ouside the limits of depth-of-field. The Japanese call this "bokah". They also have tack sharp optics and great contrast. I hand an old Leica IIIf with a 50mm f/3.5 collapsable uncoated Elmar. The thing shot fantastic pictures, even in color. I regret having ever gotten rid of it.
I have a HB 501C/M with several lenses. All of them, the 40 Distagon, 60mm Distagon, 80mm Planar, and 180mm Sonnar are excruciatingly sharp and contrasty. The only 'Blad lens I ever used that was soft was the 250mm Sonnar. That said, negative size still matters more than anything. I have a bag full of lenses for my 4x5 - a couple of which are the old Artars with nowhere near the sophistication of optics and coatings of the 'Blads. But an image shot through an Artar onto 4x5 is noticeably sharper and crisper than one shot with the 'Blad. (And either are light years better than a 35mm.)
The interesting thing is that medium/large format lenses get away with *less* resolving power than the lenses used on 35mm cameras (and by extension, digital SLRs since they share lens families with their film body counterparts). If you don't care why this is, feel free to hang up now. Otherwise ....
THE MATH ========
Resolution is measured in Line Pairs Per Millimeter (LPM). To some degree, what we perceive as "sharpness" is a matter of human perception. There is no magic number at which things are absolutely "sharp" just what we perceive things to be. This depends, in turn, on the optical system which produced the image, AND the conditions underwhich we view the image, AND the distance at which we view the image, AND other factors such as contrast range evident in the final image - We typically see higher contrast images as "sharper" even though they don't actually measure that way. You can also resort to clever techniques like Unsharp Masking to produce locally sharper edges in the detail which makes the whole print seem much sharper than it actually (as measured) is.
In the end, what ultimately matters is the resolution in LPM present in the final medium, say a print. For an 8x10 print, the general consensus seems to be that the print has to resolve 8 LPM or so. Now then, what ends up on the print (all other things being constant) is equal to the resolution of the optical system which produced the negative (film, camera, lens, and processing) DIVIDED by the magnification ratio needed to produce the image at the desired size. (I'm ignoring the resolving power of the enlarging system here. It is relevant in the sense that the final print will be no better than the weakest link in the chain.)
To make an 8x10 print, you have magnify a 35mm negative about 7x. To make the same print from a Hassy neg, you need a magnification ratio just over 4x.
Let's pretend the camera, film, and development are lossless (perfect) and that final resolution in the negative is entirely dependent on the resolving power of the lens. This is a pretty reasonable assumption for most practical situations, BTW. To get 8 LPM in our final print we need:
8 * 7 = 56 LPM resolution for the 35mm system's lens
8 * 4 = 32 LPM resolution for the Hassy system's lens
These numbers are well within the capabilities of both systems which is why you can use even a lowly 35mm camera to make beautiful 8x10s.
THE POINT =========
Because MF and LF cameras produce negs which need LESS magnification to produce a given image size than an equivalent 35mm neg, these larger formats can use lenses with LESS absolute resolving power to produce the same "sharpness" results in the final print. Manufacturers like Hassy know this (they employ one or two optical experts, I suspect ;) and save weight and cost by not building in unnecessary optical perfection in their lenses.
If you take a 35mm "chunk" out of a Hassy neg (and magnify it to
8x10, you may have LESS final resolution in the print than the 35mm equivalent because you are now magnifying things 7x with a lens that has less resolving power. To be more specific:
32 LPM (Hassy Lens) / 7x = 4.6 LPM in the final print
This will look less sharp than the 8 LPM we produced in the
35mm-derived print.
However, this is a little silly. Why spend all that money for an MF and treat it like an overweight 35mm point-n-shoot?
You really start to see the advantage in MF when you make large prints. Suppose you want a 16x20 - that's 14x for 35mm and 8x for Hassy:
64 LPM resolution is again typically within the range for a good MF lens, but 112 LPM is doubtful for even the most prestigious 35mm lenses. This is why you cannot get as apparently sharp large prints from your Leica - In other words, there ain't no substitute for square inches! If you make 20 x 24 prints you REALLY see the tiny negative's limitations. I am also ignoring other factors like the superior tonal rendering of a larger negative (it has more "bits" of information than the smaller negative). In actual fact, for a high resolution film/developer combination, the larger negs will produce consistently better prints even at 8 x 10.
To a certain extent, I've overstated things. When you view larger prints, you tend to stand further away from them - this allows you to get away with less final LPMs in the print because you are not viewing image detail as closely. That's why it is possible to produce acceptably sharp 16x20s from a Nikon because you're standing
4 or 5 feet away from the print. Even so, this is a losing game. If you want large, "sharp" prints you need large "sharp" negatives. Incidentally, this applies with equal validity to images produced digitally - the medium of information recording does not affect the laws of physics and human cognition.
As I'm tone deaf, I won't comment on music, except to say most of what has come out since about '75 makes me cringe.
As far as photography goes, if the poster wanted to do a comparison, he might well have considered size to size, instead of the age old bullshit of taking a 4x5 view camera and expecting a much smaller sensor to match it, then bitching when it doesn't. Those sensors more than match 35mm, which is the intent. A scanning back comes close to the 4x5 quality, but is even less portable and ain't quite there yet, though probably 95% of studio photographers now use a Phase II back on Hassleblads for their work.
That was last year. But, then, I guess you're right when you state "consumer grade."
There are probably a dozen DSLRs out there now that will match resolution with a 35mm using most films. As an incidental point, how many people shoot KX64 these days? When I was still shooting 35mm, my editors were delighted to get transparencies with an ISO of 200.
You''re right about the DR. I figure another 2-3 years there.
Actually, the reasons for digital photography DO include quality of photos. I've got more 20x30 and 28x36 prints on my walls now than at any other time in my life, many shot on a 6MP Pentax *istD, and the rest on a 10MP Pentax K10D. The more than match the quality I used to get out a couple of Minoltas--and the damned autofocus actually works, which is more than I could ever say for one of my Minoltas.
So true. I have seen a billboard from a 35mm Kodachrome which looked just fine from the highway. The frame was even cropped a bit. For the same reason, my 20-year old 28" Sony XBR Trinitron looks fabulously sharp from across the office, where it hovers above both my 23" Sony computer monitors. It is about 12 feet away, and appears to be the same size as a quarter of my either of my computer monitors. I treat it like a window which floats in space and has a WAY better resolution (appears to have) than either of my Sony SDM 234's which are no slouches.
About pixel density. I'm sure you have read some of this guy's stuff on pixel density?
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